By Christopher D. Kolenda
Proceedings, August 2003
On the muggy afternoon of 11 June, General Eric K. Shinseki bid farewell to the Army he served honorably for 38 years. Beginning in the jungles of Vietnam and ending in the swamps of the Pentagon, he climbed from platoon leader to Chief of Staff. In the intervening years, he showed the courage for which he is lauded by his supporters and castigated by his detractors. Through it all he demonstrated the leadership and class expected of an officer and a gentleman.
The Prussian theorist Karl von Clausewitz wrote that a distinguishing feature of military genius is determination: the ability to grasp the heart of the matter amidst chaos and confusion; the resolve to see a decision through to the end; and the agility and flexibility to alter plans when necessary to achieve the goal. To Clausewitz, determination was a form of courage—and General Shinseki exemplified it.
Such courage is not bestowed with rank or position. It is the product of a lifetime of daily choices of right over wrong, resolution over inconstancy, and candor over sycophancy. As a lieutenant he was severely wounded in Vietnam and lost much of his foot. Fighting back from his debilitating wounds—and moves to discharge him on account of them—General Shinseki demonstrated the courage that would serve him and the Army well when he became Chief of Staff.
To be sure, his four years as the Army's top general were as turbulent as the times. The decision to convert the mainstream Army's headgear from the billed soft cap to the black beret was staffed and implemented ham-handedly. It brought a tremendous outcry, especially from the Rangers who resented losing their traditional black berets. His transformation plan received uneven support. The Crusader artillery system was quashed as old-think and the Commanche helicopter program remains in limbo. Selection of the wheeled Stryker as the vehicle of choice for new, medium-weight units was demeaned by track vehicle advocates and criticized for its lack of fire power and protection—unwelcome trade-offs to make it more deployable given current and planned strategic lift.
U.S. ARMY (JOE BURLAS)
Fighting back from severe wounds received in Vietnam, General Eric Shinseki—here, talking to soldiers in Kuwait—went from platoon leader to Army Chief of Staff. His courage stemmed from a lifetime of daily choices of right over wrong, resolution over inconstancy, and candor over sycophancy.
Nonetheless, his conviction that the Army needs to be able to put a potent force in theater to bridge the gap between deployable—but lightly armed—infantry and cumbersome—but highly lethal—mechanized forces has become conventional wisdom. He moved the notion of Army transformation from empty hype to genuine capabilities being fielded today and developed for the future. He made combined-arms, externally evaluated exercises for combat units up to brigade level an annual requirement—and got the increased funding to make it happen. The result was the hard-hitting Army ground force that marched on Baghdad, crushing spasmodic though fanatical enemy resistance and ending the regime of Saddam Hussein in a few weeks.
General Shinseki's testimony that merely keeping the peace in Iraq could require several hundred thousand troops was dismissed summarily as out of step with the purported revolution in military affairs. He realized, however, what eludes most others—the size of the ground force must be tied to political tasks at hand as well as military missions. The Iraqi military could be beaten by a small ground force in concert with an overwhelming air and missile campaign. The Iraqi people can be won over only by placing enough legions in the sands of Mesopotamia to provide the necessary safety and security for the rebuilding process to begin and flourish. The 200,000 troops currently on the ground seem less than ideal. His farewell address warning to beware attempting 12 divisions' worth of requirements with only 10 divisions is a testament to his understanding of the link between political ends and military means. Unfortunately, no senior Defense Department official (outside the armed services) chose to hear those parting words of wisdom firsthand.
Eric Shinseki referred to himself as "soldier," not as "general." He stood for all that a soldier ought to be. His determination in war and peace makes him an ideal model of the martial virtue, courage. Whether they agreed with his policies or not, few will deny he was one of precious few leaders who over a lifetime of service genuinely bettered the Army.
Army Major Kolenda is the editor and coauthor of Leadership: The Warrior's Art (U.S. Army War College Foundation Press, 2001).
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